


as dreamers do

by BrenanaBread



Series: The Dreamwalker Chronicals [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrinette, Dreams, F/M, Fantasy, Fantasy AU, Fluff, adrienette - Freeform, dreamwalker au, mlbforblm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25436512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrenanaBread/pseuds/BrenanaBread
Summary: Half-dreamwalker Adrien Agreste visits his favorite person's mind for an evening date.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Series: The Dreamwalker Chronicals [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842418
Comments: 10
Kudos: 65





	as dreamers do

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the lovely and incredible Pi ([@the-picayune](https://the-picayune.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, check her out, she is seriously amazing)
> 
> This is part of an AU in which Adrien is a half-dreamwalker, a being who can travel through a person’s dreams. This takes place after the original story would have ended because I just wanted to write about two dorks in love

It’s only seconds after Adrien closes his eyes that he finds himself falling.

Falling down through his own unconscious mind, slipping into sleep easily from years of practice, and surfacing like he’s tasting air for the first time. The barrier between their minds is translucent but turbulent, like the distortion of light when hot air meets cold—a funhouse mirror that bends and twists. It’s almost another world, like seeing the off-patterns of a parallel life.

Adrien reaches out a gloved hand—claw just barely breaking the surface—and the world splits.

He’s bathed in shimmering light, sucked through to the other side in a tumbling whirl of colors and half-baked thoughts, suddenly standing in the void of her mind. It stretches on forever, without bound or limit, and he can feel her slightly rumble in her sleep, the various images swirling around him without logic or reason poking and prodding at him, recognizing him as an intruder.

“Ladybug?” he calls out, letting her world spin around him, poke him apart. “Marinette?”

And suddenly she’s only meters in front of him. There’s no warning, the shapes and off-kilter memories still flying around them aimlessly, but she’s  _ there  _ and the sight is enough to take his breath away.

Her smile is so wide, he can barely see the rest of her features. She’s all lips and teeth and dimples and the most beautiful sight he’s ever seen.   
  
“You’re back!” she runs towards him, launching herself into his arms with a ferocity only seen when soldiers come home from war. 

He takes a few steps back to center himself, but there’s really no need. These aren’t their real bodies, only subconscious manifestations of them, and the landscape of her mind only has to change with a simple thought. They’re floating in a void, the ground she’s made only a bare courtesy.

He wraps a hand around her waist while the other curves around the back of her head, holding her as close to his body as possible as he spins them around. Her skirt flutters around her legs and she laughs in his ear—be it from their dramatics or the tickle of fabric against her skin, he doesn’t know and doesn’t care so long as he still gets to hear that melodious sound.

“When do I not come back?” he asks her, refusing to put her down. They’ve stopped spinning but her hands rest on his shoulders and she looks at him so _ lovingly _ his heart aches. “I always come back for you.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t be excited about it.” She taps him on the nose with the pad of her finger. “Would you rather I stopped?”

Somehow, he clutches her tighter, burying his face in her clavicle. “Never.” 

She laughs again, one hand coming up to comb through his hair, and he melts against her. “Good, I wasn’t planning on it.”

She wiggles in his arms—his cue to let her down—but doesn’t back away from her when they’re toe-to-toe, smiling so hard their cheeks hurt, arms still wrapped around each other.

“I missed you,” he says after a moment passes of nothing but breathless giggles and the soft press of fingers against arms and sides. 

“I just saw you at school all day,” she reminds him.

He pouts. “And then we went home and I didn’t see you anymore.”

“You’re a dork.” She bites her lips and grasps his hand, linking their fingers and letting them rest at their sides, grazing their thighs. “I missed you too.”

“Really?” He quirks an eyebrow. “I couldn’t tell.”

“That’s it,” she turns her head away from him, feigning annoyance. “Now you don’t get a say in what we do tonight. It’s all up to me and my imagination.”

“I trust your imagination.”

She looks back at him slyly, the corner of her mouth twitching up and her nose scrunching. “You shouldn’t.”

“Anywhere with you is like a fairytale.”

She rolls her eyes at him, crossing her arms in front of her chest in playful annoyance. “Now you’re just being dramatic.”

Adrien throws a hand up to his forehead and bends his back as if he’s slowly fainting. “Dramatic?” He reaches out to clutch her forearm, ignoring the way she laughs at him. “How could you say that, my lady? I don’t know the meaning of the word.”

“Alright, alright, you’ve made your point.” She drags him back up with a hand around his waist and they’re chest-to-chest by the time they’re settled. “You live life like you’re the star of a one-man show.”

“Maybe the star of your  _ dreams _ ,” he nudges her temple with his nose, his teasing tone soothed by gentle affection, the blurred line of their flirtatious comments and unadulterated adoration. It raises the hair on the back of her neck and she holds back a shiver, reveling in the reactions he can elicit even from her subconscious form. Without even touching her physical body, he can make her heart race. 

“No shortage of confidence tonight, I see.” Marinette tilts her head up to catch Adrien’s cheek in a soft kiss just so she can feel the heat rise under his skin.

He doesn’t disappoint as his breathing stutters. The flush on his cheeks puts roses to shame and Marinette muffles her smile in the crook of his neck, feeling his pulse jump. “Only when I’m with you.”

It’s the simple ways they interact that have Adrien spiraling. The way she looks at him and feels like home. He’s straddled two worlds for so long—never feeling wanted, never belonging—but her smile is the sun breaking out over the horizon, her embrace the delicate moments just before he tumbles to sleep. The bridge between his two halves, she crosses the divide and he can curl up against her, filled by the freedom and affection and connection he’s never had without her.

Even lost in a world of her own creation—without direction or orientation or understanding—he’s more at home in her mind than he’s ever felt elsewhere. 

“Where should we go?” she asks, pulling away just enough to see into his eyes. “Who should we be?”

He’s thoughtful for a moment, letting her jittery mind spin half-told tales around the endless space as her creativity runs ahead of them. It moves too fast for him to make any sense of the spinning images and pulsating colors, the memories he can almost taste and the feelings he can only just barely grasp.

“You know me,” he says after a ballgown dips in and out of appearance, soft and aged like a fable. “I’m always partial to sweeping you off your feet like you’re Cinderella.”

“I think I’m more likely to make you swoon, chaton,” she laughs. “I’m your prince charming.” 

He clicks his tongue. “And you said  _ I  _ was overconfident.”

“Are you saying it’s not the truth?”

“Oh, it is,” Adrien agrees. “But I’ve got to at least keep up the appearance of composure, don’t I?”

She shakes her head. “I’ve always felt that composure was vastly overrated.”

“Do you now?” His smile is too smug and silly for the gentle way his fingers score patterns on her back.

She nods solemnly, only the barest hint of a smile flickering across her face like a dancing flame. “Composure is for old people and accountants. If you have emotions, show them! Don’t you think you owe it to yourself to feel things as thoroughly as possible?”

“Fine, I concede, you win.” He dips his head low, disheveled fringe tickling the edges of his eyebrows. “I’ll swoon for you, my lady.”

Marinette juts out her chin, tapping two fingers to his chest. “Only if it’s earned.”

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem for you,” he laughs. “But yes, only if it’s earned.”

“Good. I don’t need any pity swoons.”

“A true gentleman would never deceive you like that.”

“Oh is there a true gentleman in here?” She brings her hand up to her forehead like she’s blocking out the sun to see better. “Where? Can you introduce me?”

He lifts her up in his arms again, twirling them around fast enough her startled shreeks cocoon them like they’re in the center of a vortex. “I was mistaken. There are no gentlemen here.”

“Just some alley cat begging for attention?”

He laughs. “Something like that.”

Marinette ruffles his hair, making it stick up on end. “Lucky for him, I have a lot to give.”

The images around them have stopped swirling so intensely, only meandering in and out of existence like they’re puffs of smoke, disappearing before they’ve even taken shape. It’s how they know Marinette is ready to create. Beneath the surface, her mind churns with a powerful undercurrent of thoughts and ideas, but the surface calms enough she can swim in it, direct the waves where she wants them to go. 

“So what do you want to wear?” she asks, eyes closed in concentration but with her head tilted towards him so he knows she’s listening. “Not that I don’t love that whole black cat getup, but it’s hard to take you seriously when you look like a discount store superhero.”

“ _ Discount store _ ?”

She nods, biting her lip to keep from smiling. “Bargain bin, even.”

“You take that back,” he gasps.

She smirks, raising a brow even with her eyes closed. “Make me.” 

He’d love to give in to the competition, fall into her clear trap of teasing and flirtation. He brings himself as close to her as possible, lips hovering just over her own, breath ghosting across her skin. She holds herself still but her eyes dance beneath her lids, the rapid fluttering of a butterfly about to be caught. He wants to rise to her challenge, take the bait, but he holds back, knowing the resistance will make the end all the more sweet.

Adrien pulls himself away, letting the electricity building between them dissipate. “Care to design something for me then?”

“It would be my pleasure. Any specific colors? Era? Theme?”

“Anything that makes my eyes pop,” he bumps his hip into hers but wraps an arm around her in a side hug so she isn’t thrown off-balance. “I want them to  _ sparkle _ .”

After a moment of thought, his wardrobe transforms. The mask and ears and tail are replaced with a soft green suit, reminiscent of the 19th century. The jacket is long and narrow, with a voluminous tail and tapered vest underneath. The details on it are ornate, swirling gold patterns lining the buttons and holes down the front and encircling the cuffs. 

Her own dress morphs into a blush pink ballgown. The skirt is full but draped softly, fabric folding over itself so it feels lighter than air. The bodice is made of overlapping blush and gold embroidered petals stretching up towards her shoulders but never quite reaching and extending down into long sleeves like a second skin. Gold flowers fall down the length of the skirt in an almost unpredictable pattern as the skirt moves effortlessly. 

“Is that enough sparkle for you?”

With his arm already around her waist, it’s an easy transition. One hand splays across her back, the delicious feel of her skin against his warm palm sending tingles up his arm while the other clasps her hand.

“There’s never enough sparkle,” he says, holding her close enough that her skirt bunches between them.

They sway more than dance, letting the thrum of their pulses guide the movement. Her fingers tickle the back of his neck and his hand draws her nearer involuntarily, orbiting around each other like they’re locked by gravity.

It isn’t long before she’s sighing against his neck, his cheek resting on top of her head. They’ve stopped moving almost entirely, only the motion of his fingers tracing patterns onto her back and the circles she sketches onto his chest remaining. His soft exhalations stir the tips of her hair and hers puff against the hollow of his throat. 

There’s a warm glow between them, blurring out from their bodies like it can’t be contained. It’s soft and faded around the edges, but it stirs like a gentle fire, crackling where their skin touches. It’s a beacon in the dark void of her mind as Marinette lets go of any other thoughts, focusing only on Adrien.

The scenery warps slowly and they’re standing on the Eiffel Tower. Their clothes are replaced by jeans and blazers. It’s eerie not having any wind to whip their hair around their faces or threaten to push them over the edge, but when Marinette takes Adrien’s hand and pulls him to sit with their feet dangling over the edge, he no longer cares.

She changes the sky around them so they’re surrounded by the light of a dying sun. It’s all dark oranges and yellows and pinks spread out over the horizon like they’re lines of a paint brush. The Paris she’s created below them is crude, simple shapes and unfocused scenery, and it makes him feel like they’re the only two people in existence. Like after a world of destruction and loss, there’s still life in each other, still a home after the apocalypse.

“We could actually go here, you know,” he says, speaking out into the Paris she’s created. “Maybe not as Marinette and Adrien, but Ladybug and Chat Noir could spend nights on the Eiffel Tower. Or any other monument.”

“We could,” she agrees, turning to face him with a leg bent on the beam supporting them. “But I think there’s something special about visiting it in a place only we can. Enjoy it in a way that’s completely personal—that no one else could ever see. How many millions of tourists have some ‘special’ connection to the Eiffel Tower? But us?” she closes her eyes and the tower changes color beneath them seamlessly, like it had been that way from the beginning. “We’ve got the green Eiffel Tower. Or even,” the ground shifts to a white, rocky world, the earth greeting them from a distance, “the green Eiffel Tower on the moon. It’s all just for us.”

“You just want me all to yourself,” he eyes her with lids half-lowered.

She scootches as close to him as possible so they’re shoulder-to-shoulder before resting her head against him. “Maybe I do.” 

“Could you give me the reins for a bit?”

He doesn’t really need to ask. He was created to walk through people’s minds, tamper with their dreams. With the black cat miraculous, he’s more powerful than even a full-dreamwalker. Changing their scenery would be as easy as flicking his wrist—a snap and he could transform it into a completely different world.

But he knows how much she values working on her inner control, how stretching her creative muscles keeps her mind limber. She’s more adaptive to change since they started their midnight dream dates together, creating full scenes that shift with her desires in a matter of minutes.

He can’t help but be impressed by her. So few people can control their dreams at all and yet she’s managed to mold her own worlds. He’s never surprised by her skill and tenacity, but still constantly in awe. 

She nods and everything around them blinks out of existence. Instead of sitting on the Eiffel Tower, they’re perched on a small couch, cozy and soft like it jumped out of a catalog. The walls are a light blue, comforting and bright. There’s a fireplace in the far wall and a piano in the corner and Adrien’s pulling her to her feet without any warning.

“I want you all to myself too,” he admits. “I want all of this,” his sweeping gesture encompasses the entire room. “But I want it to be  _ real _ .”

The lights dim without warning and it’s like a movie screen pops up in front of them, taking over their entire field of vision. It starts to play and Marinette watches in wonder as she’s treated to Adrien’s first memories of her in person. How his eyes were drawn to her completely, the rest of the field blurry and unfocused. How he tried to go talk to her but was held back by his own racing heart and a brain that couldn’t make his limbs work. 

It flits to their first project together. That morning he brought coffee to her at school exactly the way she likes it without any warning. Past-Marinette seems bewildered and then a slow smile spreads like a drizzling of honey across her face. There’s a close up of their hands touching as he goes to grab his pencil and she can see herself blush through his eyes. By the way the field of view shifts to a shot of the table in front of them, she knows he’s looking away and blushing too.

It shows their first time fighting side-by-side in the real world. It’s not their first time fighting together—that took place inside her mind months earlier—but she remembers this moment just as clearly. She’s giving him a look of trust and authority, legs bent in a shallow, standing squat, arms ready to fight. She remembers how nervous she was, can see it in the way her fists fidget—tightening and loosening without rhythm. But watching herself stand her ground, see herself take charge for the first time, understand the pride and adoration Adrien looks at her with, it makes her chest tingle. 

They’re suddenly on her balcony, soft, colorful fairy lights casting her face in a warm glow. The look she’s giving him is pure affection, and when she takes his hand in her own—their bare fingers touching with all the tenderness of a love confession—and steps onto her tippy toes to press a kiss against his cheek, she doesn’t even need to hear his soft gasp. It’s already been burned into the back of her mind.

The memories speed up like they’re being flicked through a scrapbook. Them battling on the Eiffel Tower, her picking him up bridal style on the roof of his house, her arm wrapped around his waist as they soar over the Champs-Élysées, the Arc de Triomphe blinking by them. 

“These are real,” he tells her. “The landmarks of our partnership. No one experiences them the way we do, no one could ever understand what they mean to us or how special they are. The tourists see the monuments and the fanfare—and I love all that too—but your balcony, the steps of the school, the roof of a random building we rested on—they’re just as important to me. No one knows this city like us. And everytime I pass by a place with a memory of you attached to it, I can’t help but smile. You’re etched into every stone on the sidewalk.”

There’s the moment she’d tripped down the stairs and fallen into his arms, her face slack with surprise as he held her protectively. Huddling under an umbrella when they got caught in a storm, faces so close and hair sticking up in the humidity. Studying together in the park, looking out at the city from the roof of Notre Dame, baking their favorite pastries together with flour coating their faces and a too-messy countertop. 

“You are so incredible. The scenes you can create in here are breathtaking.” He holds up his hand and a stuffed animal appears in his palm. It’s a small black cat with tiny, perked ears and a tail curled around its front paws as if it’s too bashful to be seen. “But they’re fleeting.” His hand closes and it’s gone, vanishing like it was made of nothing more than smoke. “Insubstantial, a mirage.” 

The side of his hand traces her temple, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear before cupping her cheek gently. “I love that I can love you outside in the real world. I love being able to hold your hand and know that it’s actually your hand—that your skin is alive with nerves, touching my own. I love that our hands get clammy and how you put them in your coat pocket when it’s too cold outside. In here,” he gestures around them, “it might be safe and perfect, but I like the flaws that remind me it’s real. That we’re two imperfect people in an imperfect world who choose to love each other anyway. That me being what I am doesn’t matter. Because I don’t want to just be a dream, Marinette.” He clings to her tightly. “I want to be real. I want to be real for you.” He leans his forehead against hers, breathing deeply.

“You are real, Adrien.” Her nose brushes along the length of his own as she shifts, trying to catch his gaze. “To me and to the world. You’re real.”

“I want a life with you,” he whispers, as if afraid to say it too loudly, even in the privacy of her mind.

“You’ll have a life with me,” she says, brushing against his lips. “Better than any dream.”

The next morning when she meets him out in front of the school, slightly clammy hand reaching out to clasp his, he knows it already is.

**Author's Note:**

> PI OKAY I know I already did a ballroom dancing thing for you like….a week ago...but hear me out. I’m trash. Set me on the curb or haul me out to the big dumpster out back. And when Marinette can use endless imagination to make clothing for herself and Adrien, how could she not make a suit and ballgown ???? This isn’t my fault, these are the laws of the universe
> 
> Find me on tumblr [@jattendschaton](https://jattendschaton.tumblr.com/)


End file.
